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Both Sides Now

It was either a really bad TV reality show or a New Orleans honeymoon at Mardi Gras, but either way it was chaotic and fragmented and, even as he dreamed it, he recognized himself as both lead character and outside spectator, as if carrying out his own actions in reality while simultaneously viewing them on a screen, screaming a harsh and mocking critique as the show unfolded.……………………………………..This went on through the absurd scene of the drunken lurches on the tourist boat, his drinks inevitably spilling into her cleavage and the tirades that followed (which, of course, as his own voyeur, he roundly and vociferously supported); went on through the scene of the aimless and costly ramble through the casino, ostensibly searching for her, in which he pissed away nearly every penny of their wedding bounty and, although his TV self occasionally attempted to show some restraint (though admittedly not much), his voyeur/viewer self, drooling avariciously, just kept screaming for him to double down, try the slots, let it ride.…………………………………………………It all came to an incongruous end when, back in their hotel room, he opened the bureau and, finding only someone else’s clothes there—neither his nor hers—he turned to her to announce his discovery, saw someone else standing there instead, smiling and brandishing what at first appeared to be just small silver flask, and then the screen simply went black and his voyeur self was left alone, bolt upright in bed, jolted into consciousness, to figure it out for himself.